


Erebus

by minhyukkus (showhyuk)



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Angst, M/M, changkyun as icarus, i rlly hate apollo, this is a cross post
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 15:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15003839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/showhyuk/pseuds/minhyukkus
Summary: The one where it's a retelling of Icarus hyungkyun style





	Erebus

Apollo is not a good father. Hyungwon thinks it’s the first thing he learns from his mother. Apollo will come as the sun, warm and inviting, but the warmth does not linger and he never overstays. For all the golden on the skin of his father, there is dullness creeping upon his mother’s. She is not as lovely as his father and with each visit, she grows less appealing to him. She knows.

And Hyungwon learns to hate his father.

“My son,” his mother croons, her voice a tired screech. “You are your father’s son. Do not hate him.”

Hyungwon has a soft heart and is always eager to please his mother, but to this, he cannot succumb. “I am my mother’s son.” He says it with certainty even in his young age

She clicks her tongue in distaste, but he does not miss the small smile on her face. His father has taken her shine and her melody, but her smile, he leaves.

He has grown, much older, when Artemis comes to visit. Her brows are furrowed in worry and her shoulders broad and taut. She is nothing like his father. Where Apollo radiates of light and golden skin, Artemis is dimmer. She blends into the night with dark skin and darker eyes. Where Apollo taut and lean, Artemis is muscled and stocky. Where his father burns, his aunt protects.

“He must choose,” Artemis tells his mother as she sews his robe. “He is the son of a god.” She stands strong and proud in the presence of his mother hunched over a robe. He feels a touch of pain.

“I am the son of a mortal,” he interjects petulantly, eyes boring into hers imperiously. He is his mother’s son.

Artemis sighs. “And you are also the son of my brother. You must choose your realm, nephew. You are a god.”

/  
Hyungwon grows accustomed to the stares. He shares his father’s beauty after all. It’s in the golden hue of skin and the sun peeking through his eyes. It’s the way he steps, with music in his movements. He is his father’s son. But does not let it control him like it controls his father. He is beautiful nearly to a fault, but does not let his hands wander where his eyes have.

Artemis sees the way the mortals stare at him and they way he stares back. She remembers her brother and his conquests of women, willing and unwilling. Artemis is a protector and she protects her wards. She visits again, an arrow aimed at his heart.

“A reminder, nephew,” she warns to his crooked brow. “To never take what is not yours willingly.” It’s a reminder she gives to her brother, as well.

Hyungwon scowls, “I am not my father.” He moves past her, carefully.

“But you are his son,” she reminds him, arrow tucked away neatly again. He can’t tell her expression behind the fringe of her hair, but he suspects a fine line where plump lips should be and furrowed thick brows. When she turns to face him, she sports just that expression.

Hyungwon shrugs, a mocking tone filling the air. “And you are the daughter of Zeus. Pray tell me, aunt. Have you fucked as a swan today?” She bristles at his words. His insults pierce her like her brother’s sun rays. “I take that you have far easier methods of acquiring lovers.” He shifts slightly and the moonlight dances along his golden chest, a reminder yet again that he is his father’s son.

“I am,” he starts, with square shoulders and the fire of Ares in his eyes, “my mother’s son.”

/  
Hyungwon learns of his father in bits and pieces. He learns first, above all, that is father is very beautiful. It is, afterall, the most prominent thing said to him. Hyungwon hates it. He hates that even to the core of his very being, he is seen first as his father’s son.

He learns his father is fickle. The beginnings of love with his father taste like sunlight, but leave burns and scars that sink deeper. He sees this most deeply in his mother, in the burns that run in her heart and through the cord that connects him to her.

He learns of lovers scorned and lovers burned by his father until they’re a husk of their former selves. Apollo is a god and there are few who can refuse him without fear. His mother was not one of the few. Through his father’s lovers, he learns of his many brothers and sisters and their roles in the world.

Artemis visits him again at night. It is her preferred time. “You must pick a realm, nephew.”

“Pick another nephew.”

Artemis frowns, the wrinkles on her forehead appearing at his words. “You’re divine.”

Hyungwon looks up from the ground with a prominent frown. “I am my mother’s son.”

“And your father’s blood.” Artemis reminds, with a kinder tone that he’s used to. Artemis is harsh and direct. There is no need for kindness. Hyungwon is confused at her sudden change in demeanor. At the way she tries to smile at him.

“I’ve no time for godly politics,” he drawls as realization dawns upon him. He’s sure there’s something happening on Mount Olympus, something that will shift when he picks a realm. And Hyungwon is quite fine being human, thank you very much.

Artemis scowls. “There are other children of gods that also--”

“Then disrupt them.” He snaps, tired of her persistence.

Artemis scoffs.“You are not special, nephew.” She hopes it ends his hubris.

Hyungwon grins at that. “Yes, I know, aunt. That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

Artemis leaves him with a scar on his arm that night, tired and annoyed.

/  
Hyungwon thinks about realms and where his power might lie. He knows of Orpheus, talented musician. He knows of Eleuther, with the most beautiful voice. Hyungwon will not thinks of realms of music; it is too close to Apollo, too close to the sun. His core burns dark and hot for the dances that Changkyun prepares for him instead.

His mother sings most beautifully, most wonderfully. They say that’s what drew Apollo to her. No matter the beauty of her voice or her face, nothing protected her from the burns he raged across her. They tell her that Apollo is a burning lover; one that does not take well to being scorned. She placates to him with her voice and her body, but she remains a burned lover.

“You’ll pick a realm,” she tells him everyday. “You must.” He shakes his head at her. “You will. It’s a blessing, my son.” Her smile is a poor reminder of her beauty lost.

Hyungwon does not think of it as a blessing. He thinks it another way he is to be likened to his father. Another way he turns into his father. He shakes the feeling and repeats to himself, “I am my mother’s son.”

/  
Hyungwon takes no lovers. He meets many mortals and nymphs and gods alike, but it frightens him to take a lover. Perhaps he will hurt them the way his father hurt his mother. Perhaps he will burn them. He’s reminded that he glows like his father, but his father’s rays burn.

Hyungwon meets Changkyun by mistake. But Changkyun is no mistake. Hyungwon knows this as soon as his eyes lock with the beautiful dancing boy. The nymph he is chasing is forgotten as Hyungwon treads towards the boy.

“Extraordinary,” he breathes as the sun’s rays catch on the boy’s bronzed skin.

The boy freezes at the word. He turns slowly, eyes apprehensive as he finally fully faces Hyungwon. “Son of Apollo,” he whispers, lowering his gaze.

Hyungwon frowns, annoyance building in his veins. Hyungwon takes great care in being nothing like his father. He learns no musical instrument and prefers the darkness of night to the blinding day. And yet, despite his deepest efforts, he is known first as his father’s son.

“I am Hyungwon.”

The boy nods, the small smile on his face widening as the frown on Hyungwon’s face only deepens.

“I am Changkyun.”

 

Changkyun is...beautiful. He creates a stir in Hyungwon’s chest that is akin to a pleasant burn. Hyungwon thinks he’s going crazy. Changkyun appears in his dreams at night and his dreams in the day. The bronze of his skin gleams in his father’s light.

“You musn’t frown so much,” Changkyun tells him one night. “You will grow old too quickly.” Changkyun pauses. “I suppose it doesn’t matter to the divine.”

Hyungwon snorts. “I am not divine.” He plays with Changkyun’s hair, tugging lightly on the edge of the strands.

Changkyun seems to consider his next words carefully before finally speaking. “Your father--”

“Is not mine,” affirms Hyungwon sternly. He doesn’t look at Changkyun, but he can feel the tension in the boy. His next words are gentle and his hands are soft. “I am my mother’s son.” Hyungwon tucks Changkyun under his chin.

Changkyun agrees easily. “Yes,” he whispers, leaning into the other man.

Hyungwon is, after all, as warm as his father. Without the burns. It is his wish.

When Changkyun dances often, his feet quick and his smile wide. He dances sometimes in the forest with the nymphs, sometimes in the middle of town, and other times just for Hyungwon. The taller boy runs his hands through the soft thread of hair of the dancer and calls him beautiful.

Changkyun is sure he’s heard wrong because the son of Apollo is calling him beautiful.

“No one has ever called me beautiful before you,” Changkyun whispers into the night air.

Hyungwon shakes his head. “The people here do not know of true beauty.”

“They know of you,” Changkyun is quick to remind between the soft kisses of his lover.

“They know of Apollo.” His hands finally run over the hips of the dancer and conversation ceases in the night air.

/  
“Perhaps your realm is dance.”

Hyungwon stares at his aunt in disbelief.

Artemis shrugs, squatting next to him in the clearing. “I found my realm--”

Hyungwon scoffs. “Hiding from men.”

“Hunting,” Artemis snaps, eyes narrowed. “I don’t hide from men.” She’s right. She fights men and defies their advances. Artemis prefers the company of her nymphs to that of calloused hands of men.

The next words tumble from Hyungwon in defeat. “You should hide your brother from everyone,” he says quietly. “You should have hidden him from my mother, from--”

Artemis coughs. “Your mother was willing.”

“My mother is _damaged_ ,” he snaps, standing up to tower over his aunt.

Artemis pinches the bridge of her nose, standing up. “I will leave you nephew.”

 

It is the last time Hyungwon sees his aunt in many nights. But he sees Changkyun for many nights in between. Changkyun, who smells of sweet flowers and feels of smooth oil. Changkyun who glows brightly against him.

“I can worship you,” Changkyun tells him, voice soft in the dark of the night. “I want to, son of Apollo.”

Hyungwon laughs at that. “No.” He runs thin fingers through Changkyun’s black hair. “No, I’d much rather worship you.” Hyungwon spends his nights thumbing through the pages of Changkyun’s body. He spends his days tucked away in a mortal’s heart. Hyungwon worships Changkyun, from the threads of his hair, the curl of toes when he dances. He worships the mortal’s soft tongue pressed against his own.

The realization is upon him quickly.

“I love you,” he tells Changkyun during the brightest day, when he can see him best, when the rays strike the golden skin most beautifully. Changkyun believes him to the fullest.

 

The next visit is from his father.

Apollo shines where his mother dims. He walks right by him and refuses to acknowledge the presence of the god.

“My son--”

“I am no son of yours,” Hyungwon snaps with growing rage at the mere presence of the god. “I am no son of yours, Apollo. I am no son. Of yours.”

Apollo laughs, delicate and pretty like himself. “I’ve never had one of my children refuse me before. How very interesting.”

“Perhaps it is something your scorned lovers should have learned,” Hyungwon deadpans.

Apollo bristles at the words. “My lovers are all willing.”

“No one refuses a god, lest you plague them.” Hyungwon turns to face Apollo. “Kassandra refused you, did she not?”

The god balks at his son’s offensive taunts. Apollo knows there are times he is callous and perhaps harsh, but he a just lover. That he knows. So when his son decides to judge him most misguidedly, Apollo rages internally, fire rising in his eyes. “Pick a realm,” he spits out. Hyungwon needs a realm to rule over, something that Apollo can rule over.

“No.”

The god of sun grows weary of the boy. “Perhaps dance. Like that pretty boy dances for you. He’s a darling, my son.” Hyungwon finds the everything grows still at those words. “You can wield power over dance, my son. You can wield power over that boy. I see the way you watch that Changkyun boy. Perhaps--”

Hyungwon grows bored of the same words spilling from the mouths of gods. “I am no god. I have no realm. Tell me, Apollo,” he sneers, standing tall, as tall as his father. “What game are the gods playing that I must pick a realm. What game are you playing with mortals today?” His words scorch and burn along Apollo’s skin.

The god does not linger in the presence of his son. When he returns home without his father, his mother’s face dims again.

/  
Changkyun is... distractingly beautiful. Hyungwon is pulled by the dancing boy everyday until he falls into his arms every night. He feels at peace. And Changkyun, Changkyun feels almost godly around Hyungwon.

“You shouldn’t anger him so,” Changkyun warns him, though there’s a light teasing tone it his words. He trails calloused fingers over the expanse of Hyungwon’s chest.

“He is the sun. He is always angry,” Hyungwon replies, wry.

Changkyun chuckles against him, his smaller frame tucked against the taller’s long limbs. “How nice it must be... to be so high in the sky...” He leans back to brush his lips against Hyungwon’s cheek. “You needn’t be so harsh with him.”

Hyungwon enjoys waking up to Changkyun. He makes him feel mortal and human and home. The burning of the sun’s rays tells him that Apollo is less than amused. He thinks his aunt will pay him a visit soon.

Artemis strikes him with an arrow as a greeting. It is not fatal, but it _hurts_  and Hyungwon howls in pain. She does not care and descends upon with vengeance and annoyance. Strong brows come together in a near audible click as she marches towards him.

“Will you choose a realm, nephew?” She demands, tunic still smeared with the blood of her hunt.

Hyungwon pulls the arrow from his arm. “You imitate him well, aunt,” he sneers, pointing her own arrow at her chest. “You reflect his anger in a way he dare not, lest the people see him poorly.” Artemis growls, it’s a warning. He is growing too bold.

“Hera grows weary of those half divine.”

Hyungwon snorts, walking past his aunt. “Perhaps she should speak to her husband.”

“Perhaps you should listen to the words of the gods.”

“It’s helped no one before,” is his reply before he leaves his aunt in the darkness she rules over.

/  
Hyungwon meets Daedalus once.

The inventor bows deeply and Hyungwon can see a small shrine for Hephaestus behind him. Daedalus greets him quietly; he is as soft as his son is tender. Hyungwon shines in the dim room amongst many inventions and Daedalus sees the bright rays as his son does. He stays some ways away, fearful of being burnt.

Daedalus warns Changkyun that night. The sun’s rays will burn through the thickest skin. Though the sun travels, it is always present. Changkyun does not heed his father.

He greets Hyungwon with open arms and wide smile. Hyungwon sees bliss. He picks up Changkyun from the ground and kisses him, hard. Changkyun bends to his whim, following the soft hands of Hyungwon, so different from his own calloused ones.

Changkyun spends many moments with his father, helping to build and create. Daedalus is cunning and brilliant, he crafts majestic labyrinths and contraptions that fill Changkyun with a sense of wonder. Sometimes, Changkyun will prattle on about the new inventions, the curve of his full lips enrapturing the half god.

Other times, Changkyun dreams of the crafts in the arms of his lover. Hyungwon places kisses to his skin and calls him beautiful everyday. Even the sun’s rays felt like the warmth of his lover. Changkyun shudders at the word lover, that Hyungwon, son of Apollo is known as his lover. His hubris grows.

 

Changkyun wishes to fly. The rays of the sun feel like the the fingertips of his lover on the ground, he can only dream of the warmth of the sun’s rays in the sky.

Daedalus warns him to not fly too close to the sun, lest the wax of the wings melt. His father warns him not to fly too close to the sea, lest the wax softens. Changkyun heeds his father’s warning.

When he takes flight, Changkyun swoops through the sky in glee. The sun’s rays feel warmer in the sky, like Hyungwon is enveloping him. Changkyun flies a little higher. He thinks if he is closer, just a little closer, it will feel like Hyungwon. Changkyun does not heed his father.

That day is the brightest day and the sun’s rays strike further than before.

They are not warm, the rays instead feel like fire and burning.

Changkyun screams at the charred sensation. His skin feels like it’s being consumed by the flames of the sun. The wings melt and Changkyun falls. He calls for Hyungwon, his cry more of a sob before his body breaks in the water.

Hyungwon hears a cry that sends a sharp shock through his heart. He rushes out, towards the cry that rings through the town. He watches as his lover falls into the realm of Poseidon, a god angry and callous. Poseidon is not a kind god and he pushes Changkyun deeper into the realm of Amphitrite. Changkyun’s lungs collapse and then his body breaks. Like all mortals, he dies.

Changkyun does not hear the anguished wail from his lover. He does not see his lover fall to his knees in despair. He does not hear his father call his name. Changkyun sinks deeper into the deep ocean, into the pit of Amphitrite’s belly, disappeared from the mortal realm.

It is Apollo.

It is always Apollo who leaves mortals burned, who leaves mortals in ashes.

But Hyungwon does not bother himself with his father. He can feel the rays bursting through the air to reach him, but with a raise of his hand, he turns the light to ash. Apollo is fickle. He uses the warmth of sunlight, to burn and scar. He is a child. Hyungwon deems him unworthy.

Instead, he searches for the opening in the garden of white poplar and a white cypress. He descends into the darkness of the Underworld to find the god his father cannot touch. When he reaches the River Styx, the light the emanated from Hyungwon previously, falls from his shoulder as ash.

Charon waits in his boat, dark eyes leering. “You are not dead.”

Hyungwon flinches. “No, I am not.” He steps forward, confidently, blending slightly into the darkness of the Underworld. “I wish to cross.”

“You are not dead.”

“Yes,” Hyungwon snaps. “I _know_ , but I request access--” Charon repeats the words from before and Hyungwon is a mere inches from screaming of a loss to the ferryman. Hyungwon feels as though his heart is at a loss, not quite burst from the flames of his pain, but incinerated and empty.

It comes together at once for him then. Changkyun has his heart and with no Changkyun, Hyungwon’s has burned to ash.

“My,” comes a voice, musing. “How odd to find the son of Apollo down here.”

Hyungwon looks up and into blackeyes. Hades. He is pale to his father’s golden, pale and with a tired face of too many dead to manage. Hyungwon feels some sort of relief in that. The black eyes of the god softens, as if he senses the distress in the demigod.

“Why do you request access to my world, boy?”

“Please,” he begs. “Changkyun.”

Hades appraises him for a moment. He turns to look behind him, to his wife. The goddess joins him, standing just above the River Styx.

“He is locked away in Amphitrite,” Persephone whispers, her voice pained. Her curls fall over a bare, brown shoulder, a stark contrast to her pale husband. “She swallowed him whole. He is not here, but in her core.” The look she gives him is one of pity.

Hyungwon is not sure if it is because he in the Underworld or the anguish and pain he feels. Perhaps a mixture of all three... but he descends into a newfound darkness. It happens step by step. His skin loses the bright glow that is given to him by his father. It dims until his skin turns the color of ash, gray and without radiance of before. Hyungwon’s copper hair coils until it’s a black at the surroundings in the Underworld.

Hyungwon diminishes into the dark air, his being becoming one.

Persephone takes pity and pulls him into their world, dark and dead.

 

When Apollo visits his uncle, demanding his son, Hades laughs.

“There is no Hyungwon,” he says from his throne beside Persephone.

Hyungwon is no longer his son. Apollo has burnt him into the darkness.

“They call him Erebus now.” _Darkness_.

Apollo finally dims.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos/comments are always appreciated!  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/minhyukkus)


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